Women's studies has changed over the years — and it's more popular than ever

Drew Nelson, a business major at Indiana University, never expected he would pick up a minor in gender studies.

“I wasn’t very interested in the subject, to be honest, but once I started doing a lot of the class readings and having discussions with people in the class, I kind of got interested,” Nelson said.

Although Nelson wasn’t sure if the class content would be helpful to him in the future, he said that since picking up his minor, he already thinks he’s able to understand and relate to his peers and colleagues better, while also finding it easier to accept people that aren’t so similar to him.

“I guess I thought that because I was a guy, that was also part of why I didn’t think I needed these classes,” he said. “But these aren’t women’s help session classes. They’re a chance for us to have a conversation and to be able to understand one another better, no matter who we are.”

Women’s studies programs began popping up at universities around the country in the 1960s, and today, the academic discipline is still on the rise.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the number of women’s and gender studies degrees in the United States has increased by more than 300% since 1990, and in 2015, there were more than 2,000 degrees conferred.

These days, women’s studies programs include gender and sexuality studies, and many of the programs explore and question the relationship of race, class, sexuality, ethnicity and more to encourage students to investigate in the broader field of gender.

At San Diego State University, department chair Doreen Mattingly oversees the oldest women’s studies program in country, which was implemented in 1970. She said student interest has always existed, but in recent years, there’s been a noticeable growth.

“We have just seen a flood of people declaring a major and minor — probably close to 100 now,” Mattingly said. “I know people teach about gender and women’s rights, but every semester, I have students come to me and say ‘why is it that no one ever taught me this’ and ‘no one ever taught my what you’re telling me.’”

Mattingly said many of SDSU’s students take women’s studies classes as a part of their core curriculum requirements. After just one class, Mattingly said many students “think differently about the world” and realize that being able to advocate for the rights of women and disenfranchised people in general is what’s important to them.

“Our curriculum is really about social justice, and I think at this moment a lot of students are realizing that this is where students want to put their energy – what they want to learn and what they want to do,” she said. “Some students come straight to [the department] because it’s their passion, but a lot find out once they’re introduced to the material that they want to pursue more.”

Women’s studies classes put women’s lives “in the center of the way we begin to approach things,” Mattingly said. The department at SDSU is also interdisciplinary, and course offerings focus on intersectionality, looking at how gender intersects with race, class, religion, sexuality and so on.

Over time, women’s studies curriculum and focus has evolved and changed. At Wellesley College, women’s and gender studies professor Susan Reverby said the discipline has become more global and has a “more fluid analysis of gender” than what was taught earlier on.

In 1971, early women’s studies courses focused on women’s roles in economic and political institutions, and they also analyzed women’s roles in history, literature and equality movements. In the 1980s, courses emphasized cross-cultural perspectives of women and how humans identify gender, and by the late 1990’s, women’s and gender studies courses included topics on race, feminist thought and the socialization of women.

“The field should grow and be different than it was in decades ago, because if it didn’t, we didn’t do our work,” Reverby said. “Now, especially, I think we’re better at intellectually helping students understand all the different forms of intersectional experience, and we’re less focused on social construction.”

In recent years, Reverby too has seen “many more students” taking an interest in women’s studies classes in the last decade, especially students of color.

When Reverby started teaching women’s and gender studies at Wellesley in 1982, however, the academic climate was “much different.” In order for the discipline to be taken seriously, she had to prove herself to other faculty members, some of whom thought her classes were more similar to “a women’s health center” rather than an intellectual space.

“It was a struggle at first to prove that my college needed women’s and gender studies,” she said. “But after several years, we’ve been able to show that this is an academic program – and now a department – that uses gender as a lens to understand the world.”

The academic status of these programs has shifted. “I think the question 30 years ago was ‘why do we need this, is it still relevant?’ Reveryby said. “But I think we’ve proven over 30 or 40 years now why women’s studies and it is an intellectual field that is really crucial thing to have at a college.”

Reveryby said that many students grow up in silos and are typically sheltered by their own experiences. But when studying society from a women’s study perspective, students are able to open their eyes to the experiences that others have had, too, helping to widen worldview and understanding.

“I think the learning in women’s studies is both intellectual and emotional and that expands the way people think and take in material,” Reverby said. “This stuff is about you and the world you live in, and so it gives you a way to think about how gender affects everything at why that’s important. I think students become a lot more open to difference [after taking these courses], and they’re not afraid of what’s being discussed.”

Despite having taught women’s and gender studies for several decades, both Reverby and Mattingly said they don’t see the discipline going away anytime soon – if not ever.

“Women’s and gender studies still has a place because what we’re teaching people, they might not be learning anywhere else,” Mattingly said. “America needs women’s studies right now to help people to understand what’s at stake and how people have struggled in the past, and we’re helping to give students the knowledge they need to be able to stand up for others.”

Ball State University women’s and gender studies major Lilly Madden said that her degree choice was an easy one. Although she received “disapproval” from friends and family at first, she said that understanding what the discipline is about is key to “realizing its benefits.”

“When people with this degree and this background go out into the world, they have a really great tool set to be be able to understand and recognize different problems and obstacles affecting different people in our society,” Madden said. “I think there are a lot of people that think this field of study is about having pity for women or complaining about all the things that are wrong with our world, but the main goal is to help find ways to overcome these things in the real world.”

After graduating, Madden said she wants to use her degree to work for a non-profit organization in hopes of assisting women affected by sexual assault.

“I do have job opportunities, I do have skills, I do have a college degree that is meaningful,” Madden said. “I honestly think that the more [women’s and gender studies majors] that enter the world with this knowledge and positively impact communities, the better understood, perceived and appreciated the field will be over time.”